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Seminar: 25 April 2002
REGIONAL INTEGRATION, MIGRATION AND POVERTY
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[Introduction]
[Series of activities]
[Papers]
[Partner Organisations]
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Series of activities
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Series of activities
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The proposed seminar forms part of a series of activities that have been conducted by the Southern African Migration Project and Lawyers for Human Rights in relation to the development of new immigration legislation in South Africa.
SAMP publishes a regular Migration Policy Series and Migration Briefs Series devoted to migration policy and research in Southern Africa. SAMP provided advisory services and personnel to the Green Paper Task Team on International Migration in 1997 and the White Paper Task Team in 1998. It has organized three international conferences on South African immigration policy and made expert submissions to the Department of Home Affairs and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on the White Paper and several drafts of the Immigration Bill. SAMP has a research cooperation agreement with the Department of Home Affairs and is also a member of the steering committee of MIDSA (Migration Dialogue in Southern Africa), an inter-governmental body designed to promote regional cooperation on migration management in SADC.
Lawyers for Human Rights submitted their first comments on the White Paper on immigration in 1999. During year 2001 the project submitted further comments on the Immigration Bill to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, especially in regards to its impact on the Refugees Act and on apprehension and detention practices.
On 24 October the Refugee Rights Project, the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research and the Law Society of South Africa, facilitated a Seminar on the establishment of immigration courts, proposed in the Immigration Bill. This seminar brought together various players from government, civil society, universities and legal practitioners. The seminar was very successful in promoting discussion and debate regarding these specialized courts. The Project is presently drafting a seminar report following which there may be plans for further seminars.
In addition, LHR, in collaboration with other human rights organisations, is preparing a seminar with focus on certain human rights aspects of the Immigration Bill, which is likely to take place in February/March 2002.
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